Toward a decentralized copyright infrastructure as a ‘public service’: the case of Digiciti and Estonia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates the process of collaboration between Digiciti Networks, a private company, and the public sector in Estonia, in their experiment of building a decentralized copyright registry for the music industry. Drawing upon existing research in national innovation policy and music industry studies, we examine our case as an endeavour for collaborative public value creation. We demonstrate that while the Estonian government has established innovation policy hubs capable of driving and coordinating challenge-oriented policies, other parts of the national innovation system lack the capacities and dynamic capabilities that could organically host ambitious visions of future infrastructures for the creative industries. Nonetheless, we also show how the developing regulatory and policy frameworks of the European Union influenced the development of the case and provided opportunities to advance it, especially with regard to the ‘public’ or ‘common’ nature of future data infrastructures as part of the European data and blockchain strategies.